Cannes looks beyond Hollywood as US film-makers mostly fail to make the grade

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The 79th edition of the influential festival boasts an auteur-heavy lineup – with one, very big, country conspicuous by its almost total absence Gillian Anderson and Cara Delevingne to hit Cannes as auteur heavyweights dominate festival lineup Has Europe fallen out of love with the US? Has Cannes fallen out of love with Hollywood? Will the festival, like Nato, become a non-American institution? Either way, the annual announcement of the Cannes selection has revealed a list that skews away from Hollywood towards a renewed dominance of world-cinema auteurs and heavy hitters, including Pedro Almodovar, Cristian Mungiu and Asghar Farhadi. There’s certainly nothing to compare with last year’s Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible extravaganza, although there are directorial debuts out of competition for Andy Garcia (also starring) with his crime drama Diamond, and John Travolta directs Propeller One-Way Night Coach, expressing his love of aviation, based on his own novel. There are no Britis...
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Old Man review – wilderness horror as cranky codger faces off with mysterious hiker

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Lucky McKee’s psychological horror starring Stephen Lang feels inauthentic and flat

Here is an unexceptional psychological horror from director Lucky McKee that feels dated and clunky, with some fairly ropey acting – or maybe that is down to the shaky lines put into the actors’ mouths. It only comes alive after a freaky plot twist at the end, but even that left the hairs on the back of my neck unprickled, the carpet under my feet unpulled.

Stephen Lang plays a cranky codger known only as Old Man who lives in the remote Smoky Mountains wilderness. The set design of his wooden cabin is distractingly inauthentic; it’s like an Ikea store display that has been done up in hicksville chic. Old Man has woken up in a filthy temper; first his dog, Rascal, pees on the floor, and then there is a knock at the door. Old Man shoves his shotgun into the face of the stranger standing outside. “Do as I say, or you’ll end up like her,” he growls, jabbing the gun at a stuffed wildcat on the wall.

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